The present invention relates to a bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus, which handles, for example, a bill or bills.
Conventionally, a bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus is mounted in an automated transaction machine used in financial institutions, and the like. The bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus comprises a cash slot for allowing a user to deposit/withdraw a bill or bills, a bill discriminator for discrimination of a bill, and a bill conveyance path, which passes the bill discriminator and conveys a bill or bills. Also, the bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus comprises a combination of respective units, such as a temporary stocker for temporarily storing a deposited bill or bills, a deposit box for storing a deposited bill or bills, a withdrawal box, from which a bill or bills for withdrawal are fed, a recycle box for storing and feeding a bill or bills for deposits and withdrawals, a reject box for storing a bill or bills, which are not to be stored in the deposit box and the recycle box, and a bill or bills, which are not to be withdrawn, out of a bill or bills fed from the withdrawal box, and a load/collect box for feeding a bill or bills being supplied to the recycle box and storing a bill or bills collected from the recycle box.
Along with the popularization of automatic transaction machines, there is heightened a need of making such bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus small in size, inexpensive, and convenient in use while ensuring conventional functions and performances.
Also, along with increase in handling foreign bills in the country and in needs for bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus in the foreign countries, there are demanded for bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus capable of handling not only Japanese yen bills but also foreign bills.
Also, there are demanded bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus highly adapted to general purpose and capable of meeting various needs such as kinds of bills as handled, an arrangement of a cash slot related to an operation by a user, front and rear surface operations related to an operation by a person in charge, etc.
Various constructions have been proposed for, in particular, the cash slot of a bill depositing/withdrawing apparatus, which involves the above-mentioned needs.
For example, there is proposed a bill processing machine, in which a cash slot is arranged on a vertical surface on the front thereof and a storage unit is arranged so that a bill or bills are charged/discharged horizontally from the cash slot (see JP-A-10-181928). The storage unit of the bill processing machine is in the form of a drum capable of rotation and rotates to predetermined positions according to a feeding operation of a charged bill or bills and a stacking operation of a discharged bill or bills. Thereby, a cash slot (bill slot) in a horizontal direction is realized.
Also, there is proposed a bill processing device, in which a cash slot is arranged on a horizontal surface on the front of the device and a storage unit is arranged so that a bill or bills are charged/discharged vertically from the cash slot (see JP-A-9-208134). The storage unit of the bill processing device is constructed to enable rotation and rotates to predetermined positions in a feeding operation of a charged bill or bills and a stacking operation of a discharged bill or bills. Thereby, a cash slot (bill slot) in a vertical direction is realized.
Also, there is proposed a bill handling device, in which a bill storage unit in a cash slot is constructed to be capable of rotate, thus enabling accommodating to a money deposit position being either a substantially horizontal position or a substantially vertical position (see JP-A-2000-331214). Thereby, the bill handling device can be mounted on either an housing, in which a cash slot (bill slot) is arranged on a substantially vertical surface, or an housing, in which a cash slot is arranged on a substantially horizontal surface.
On the other hand, since these types of devices operate all day in an unmanned state in an automatic machine corner of a financial institution, a high reliability is demanded of cash depositing/withdrawing transaction by a user. For example, in a deposit transaction, a user charges a bill or bills, which are folded or torn, into a cash slot, in some cases. When fed into the device, such bill or bills are sometimes skewed much or torn to cause jam generated on a bill conveyance path according to a state of conveyance.
Further, with a device, which can also handle foreign bills, kinds of bills are not only increased as compared with Japanese yen bills but also bills are frequently and greatly different in size in longitudinal and transverse directions according to kinds of bills. Therefore, there is a possibility that a large number of bills charged into a cash slot are aligned very randomly. Also, in terms of situations of bill circulation in respective countries, some foreign bills are sometimes in a worse state than that of Japanese yen bills with respect to degree of fold and tear.
With the cash slot, which affords depositing/withdrawing of a bill or bills horizontally, as in the JP-A-10-181928 described above, however, ends of bills cannot be aligned due to gravity when bills are charged. Therefore, bills in an unevenly aligned state are frequently taken into the device, which sometimes causes jam in conveyance, and thus reduction in bill jam at the time of feeding presents an important problem.
Also, the cash slot, through which a bill or bills are permitted to be charged in a vertical direction, as in JP-A-9-208134 includes many portions positioned in dead spaces as seen from a user. Therefore, in some cases, a bill or bills, such foreign bill or bills, which are small in size, are left in the cash slot, so that a subsequent transaction is made impossible. In such case, handling of the device cannot help but be reserved, so that prevention of leaving a bill or bills is an important problem.
Also, with a pocket type cash slot, through which a bill or bills are permitted to be charged, as in JP-A-2000-331214, it is necessary for a user to enter a hand into the cash slot, in which a drive unit is present. Therefore, there is caused a problem that a user is psychologically afraid to insert a hand, and so it is an important task to make a user interface at the cash slot friendly to a user.